ARTICLES ABOUT OFFSPRING BY DATE - PAGE 3

Here's something the Rolling Stones should consider the next time they want to raise ticket prices to absurd levels: Why not give $1 million to a fan? The Stones and other greedy me-first bands would probably laugh at the thought, but they should pay attention to what the Offspring is doing. The band is giving away $1 million of their own money to a fan on MTV. The contestants only had to download for free the band's new single, Original Prankster, from www.offspring.com. They thus entered a lottery from which finalists have been chosen on MTV's Total Request Live, with the winner to be picked Tuesday.

She could have been a dental hygienist, if only her family had encouraged her in that direction. But all they knew was filmmaking, so poor Sofia Coppola ended up going into the family business and becoming a movie director. "They could have been dentists, and maybe that would have been just as exciting," she said over breakfast in a hip coffee shop near the Los Angeles home she shares with her husband, director Spike Jonze (Being John Malkovich). "But, they weren't dentists, and I didn't hear my father talk enthusiastically about dentistry while I was growing up. He talked about filmmaking, and I guess I picked up a few things along the way."

Midway through the Shabbat service, after belting out Judaism's most sacred prayer, Benny Katz uttered several words many Jews would say qualify him as Christian. As relatives coaxed their musical instruments into a lively merengue, Katz blew into a traditional ram's horn, then asked his small congregation to repeat after him: "Glorious is Jesus. He is our God," he chanted. "Hallelujah, Jesus. We are following your path," replied about 15 congregants, as they danced beside rows of lawn chairs arranged on an open-air patio next to Katz's home.

Once upon a sleepy world, back before all things baby were a booming industry, baby name books were dusty tomes that sat on the shelf, taken down only in the most desperate of instances when some sorry couple could not decide whether to name Baby for Great Aunt Philomena or Great Uncle Sylvester. Whoa, baby, that was then. Now, at the brink of the millennium, the monikers slapped on Baby Boy and Baby Girl are no less researched, dwelled upon, fretted over and grabbed from left field than some new-fangled brand name slapped on the front of a new morning crunchie.

As protesters marched with funeral wreaths to mourn what they said was the death of an independent judiciary in Hong Kong, the territory's government announced on Tuesday that it will ask Beijing for help in reversing a controversial court ruling here granting residency rights to mainland-born offspring of Hong Kong residents . Chief Executive Tung Chee-hwa, citing an official report that Hong Kong's population could swell by 1.6 million people if...

Stroll down Ocean Drive and you'll see celebrities, models and tourists packed together in a mix that makes people-watching a defining South Beach pastime. Perhaps no one has done more for people watching on South Beach than cafe owner Mark Soyka. Ten years ago, when Ocean Drive was cheap and chancy, Soyka opened a small newsstand that served coffee and pastries, salads and sandwiches, late into the night. Today, News Cafe is a landmark on Ocean Drive. Its outdoor tables have crept like kudzu across the sidewalk and down the block.

"Hope I die before I get old." The best sound bites always come back to haunt their authors. So it is with My Generation's quotable moment, coined 35 years ago by Pete Townshend of The Who. Not only did Townshend's g-g-generation not young; it had kids. And they're out there now, full of life, doing whatever it is young people do with their parents' good names. Townshend's 28-year-old daughter, Emma Townshend, for one, appears to be ignoring every precedent except brand identity: Her trilly, piano-and-voice debut, Winterland (Elektra)

My kids don't like being called "kids." In their place, I probably wouldn't, either. In fact, I am in their place to some degree. In reference to my brothers, sisters and I, my mother is often says things such as, "None of my kids are allergic to anything." Considering that we range in age from 35 to 54, it hardly seems proper to call us kids. But what's the alternative? "Children" doesn't comfortably apply to us. Nor does it apply to my own kids, who are 26, 22 and 20. According to my American Heritage dictionary, the first definition of "children" is "people between birth and puberty."

Social Security is commonly thought of as a retirement plan, and it's true that it serves as a basis for your retirement income. But once you become a parent, an even more important aspect of your Social Security protection kicks in: its family protection features. The value of the protection Social Security provides your family may far outstrip the value of your retirement protection alone. For example, Social Security benefits typically replace about 45 percent of the pre-retirement earnings of the average wage earner.

As an early Father's Day gift, my two younger kids decided to help me with this columm. "Why not write about how we've surpassed your intelligence," Matt said. He went on to point out that he knows more than me about science and computers, Laura knows more about music and Joe knows more about literature and movies. "Yeah, write about how we don't need you any more," Laura chimed in. "Joe's the brains, Matt's the muscle and I'm the heart." Ah, what bliss it is having three grown children who have inherited their father's gift for biting wit. Without them to bring me down to earth, I don't know where I would turn for ego adjustment.